As I was writing about Lottie's time in Morocco and then later in Kabul, I often thought of these lush, fragrant spices. Yellow cumin, green cardamom, brown coriander, and red cloves. Mmmm. I can smell them now. Can you?

The souk is noisy and colorful and jam-packed. Every stall along the cobblestone street is stuffed with people and stalls selling everything imaginable. Black, plastic barrels overflow with herbs and spices. Raw chicken parts line glass cases. Silk jilbabs in happy colors like peach, cream, teal, amber, and coral shimmer in the sun. Pointy-toed shoes like Mum’s are stacked in blocks of gold, red, purple, and pink, all nestled on top of one another so snugly that there must be thousands of shoes in one little stall.

Iceland is a magical country full of so many natural wonders that it's hard to pick a favorite. But I fell in love with the Jökulsárlón Glacier Lagoon. We visited in the winter when the lagoon was overflowing with massive chunks of iridescent ice and eerily devoid of people. And, yes, the colors in the ice really are this vibrant!

He pulls into another dirt lot, and the headlights illuminate the surreal landscape in front of us. This Gunna body knows that the lagoon is usually sapphire blue in the daylight and spotted with chunks of light blue ice. But at night, the water is inky black and the ghostly chunks of ice almost glow. Some chunks are as tall as two-story buildings, but they all eventually melt smaller and smaller until they finally turn into water in the lagoon. It’s basically an ever-changing pot of glacial soup.

These intricate chedis at Wat Pho in Bangkok, Thailand are stunning in design and size! Lottie passes by Wat Pho in I'M WITH ANXIOUS, but does not get a chance to go in and explore. Maybe in another book? :)

She laughs. “Wat Po is how you pronounce it. It’s a temple that houses many chedis and a big, reclining Buddha that’s over 45 meters long.”

I try to think of that in American terms. Forty-five meters is almost 150 feet, or about half a football field. That’s one big Buddha.

“What’s a chedi?”

Rinzen doesn’t seem to mind all my questions. “A chedi is a memorial built to house the ashes of a loved one or a revered person. Usually it’s a bell-shaped tower more than ten stories high, topped with a finial, and ornately covered in mosaic and flower-shaped tiles. They’re really very pretty.”